A reading report of “Becerra, L., Candilis, D., Thoueille, E., Wendland, J. (2016). Maternité et déficience visuelle : accession à la parentalité, soutien social, compétence parentale, dépression et représentations d’attachement. Devenir, 2(28), 91-108.”
Theoretical framework
Visual disability impacts all ages and concerns 3,7% of women between 20 and 40 years old. It is necessary to take into account the different kinds of visual impairment : the blurred vision (difficulties in perception of contrasts, reliefs and distances), the damage of peripheral vision (narrowing of the visual field) and the damage of central vision (difficulties in perception of details and colours). Moreover, visual disability has various effects depending on its nature (acquired or congenital), its evolution (early or late) or associations with other pathologies. It seems like visual disability has necessarily an influence on maternity for these women. Once the child is born, the quality of mother-baby interactions may interrogate, the importance of eye contacts between the mother and her newborn being well known. However, researches in this field are pretty scarce and studies with visually impaired parents with sighted children stay very limited with few dyads.
When an adult becomes a parent, he develops a parental self-worth, also called sense of parental competence, which plays a leading role in the self-worth of the person. The sense of parental competence influences parental sensitivity, in particular maternal, which is a determinant of the child’s attachment. This sense of parental competence consists of two dimensions : the sense of parental effectiveness (perception that the individual has of his or her own ability to solve problems related to the role of parent) and the sense of accomplishment (affective dimension of this parent role). For some authors, the sense of parental competence is influenced by the parent-child interaction but also by significant people of the social network. There are different types of support depending on their nature (emotional, material, informative), or their source (family, friends, professionals). However, the way the person perceives the support she receives has more effects than the effective support itself.
Thus, in the overall population there are positives links between secure attachment, sense of parental competence and perceived social support ; and those three dimensions are negatively linked to depression. Nevertheless, those links haven’t been subject to researches alongside of visual impaired mothers, hence this present study.
Study
The sample is composed of 17 mothers between 22 and 43 years old. 14 of them have one child only, 2 have two children and the last one is waiting for her second. The 19 children are 1 month ½ to 5 years old.
The authors used 6 questionnaires :
– on visual disability : interrogates women about the different modalities of their disability (nature, starting age, cause, type and transmission risk)
– on journey of adhesion to parenthood : interrogates women about sexuality and contraception, couple formation, desire of pregnancy, pregnancy follow-up and received support
– on relationships : measures attachment security in adults
– on depression scale : evaluates depressive symptomatology
– on sense of parental competence : measures the sense of parental competence with its two sub-dimensions
– on social support : evaluates two dimensions of perceived social support (availability and satisfaction)
Awards have been carried out during 6 weeks and took the form of one hour individual and structured interviews.
Results
Nature of visual disability is congenital for 65% of the participants and acquired for 35%. For 47% of the participants, visual disability involves a transmission risk to the progeny. Encounter with the child’s father is varied, and for half of the participants the pregnancy was planned. For the other half, the child was still desired. Participants felt supported in their child project, as much by their family members as by professionals. The scores correspond to a detached type of attachment, and participants don’t show a depressive symptomatology. The sense of parental competence and accomplishment are high, while the one of effectiveness is medium. Social availability and satisfaction are relatively low compared to the overall population.
There are no significant correlations between attachment and depression scores, sense of parental competence and perceived social support ; which means that attachment isn’t linked to the three previous mentioned variables. Likewise, there are no significant correlations between depression scores and sense of parental competence or perceived social support ; which means that depression isn’t linked to the two previous mentioned variables. Furthermore, there are significant positive correlations between sense of parental competence and perceived social support. Indeed, higher the number of available persons is, higher the sense of parental competence also is. As well, higher the number of available persons and support’s satisfaction are, higher the sense of parental competence also is. Lastly, higher the number of available persons is, higher support’s satisfaction also is. Most mentioned available persons are the friends, the partner, then the mother and sister, then the father, and then the brother. Professionals are sometimes mentioned and some of the participants have quoted their child as source of support.
Those women seem to access to maternity in the classic way despite disability. However, they would present a particular style of relationships with other, quite detached, with a great need for independence due to visual disability. Nonetheless, this relationship modality doesn’t involve a depressive fragility and doesn’t affect the sense of parental competence. Indeed, even though they are blind or visually impaired, those mothers feel utterly competent in their role. Social support includes a key aspect for them, as much in the availability of people if needed as in the satisfaction they took from the provided support. Although those visually impaired mothers seem to be able to rely on many people if needed, they are less supported and satisfied than other women ; which means that visual disability still leads to a certain social isolation.
Words I have learned :
– blurred : flou
– scarce : rare
– parental self-worth : estime de soi parentale
– sense of parental competence : sentiment de competence parentale
– journey : parcours
– awards : passations
– utterly : tout à fait